The Rudolf Steiner Archive

51. The Western Paths of Initiation

[ 1 ] Where do these insights into the spiritual worlds come from, and what path leads to them in the present day?

[ 2 ] Dr. Steiner identifies four natural paths:

1. The Entire World of Dreams. First Category.
2. Second Category: Premonition, Vision.
3. Second Sight.
4. The Rosicrucian Path.

[ 3 ] A dream is, as it were, the atavistic remnant of an ancient state of consciousness.

[ 4 ] Vision and intuition reside in the subconscious.

[ 5 ] The second face does not enter one's consciousness either.

[ 6 ] Intuition, vision, deuteroscopy. An example of this.

[ 7 ] Submerging in water while remaining conscious from above.

[ 8 ] Newspaper article

[ 9 ] “Pester Lloyd,” Vol. 56, No. 130, Budapest, Thursday, June 3, 1909, Morning Edition, pp. 4–5

[ 10 ] (Theosophical Congress in Budapest.) From Pentecost Sunday until today, the Fifth European Theosophical Congress was held here. The Congress held its sessions in the ballroom of the Pester Lloyd Society. Numerous participants had come from England, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria. The Hungarian Theosophical Society was represented by approximately eighty members. Numerous lectures were given on the philosophy of religion, occultism, pedagogy, aesthetics, etc. Paintings and drawings of a religious nature were exhibited in the ballroom. In particular, the paintings by Aladär Kriesch, Alexander Nagy, Robert Nädler, and Bela v. Takäch were met with great acclaim. On the evening of Pentecost Monday, the congress participants attended a performance of Madách’s *Tragedy of Man* at the National Theater. Two public lectures were also held. On June 1, Madame Annie Besant gave a lecture in English on “Expanded Consciousness.” The speaker’s compelling eloquence made a lasting impression. Today’s lecture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner pointed the way to the spiritual world. To demonstrate the existence of such a world, the speaker cited clairvoyant consciousness, which manifests itself, on the one hand, in dreams, and on the other, in premonitions, visions, and other forms of insight. According to Dr. Steiner, dreams were originally mediators of spiritual perceptions; only later did they degenerate into a world of perceptions of unreality. Vision and the other states of clairvoyant consciousness represent a return to the original world of spiritual perception, accompanied by the images of the sensory world in which we live. Theosophy seeks to awaken the ability to enter the spiritual world with the “I”-consciousness—which arose only through sensory perceptions—and to unite this “I”-consciousness with the clairvoyant consciousness. For only through this do perceptions of the latter become images of real processes, experiences, and events. Once this ability has been awakened, a person has reached a higher stage of perfection, from which they can work for the true well-being and freedom of humanity.

[ 11 ] The lecture was listened to with keen interest by the large audience and was met with enthusiastic applause. The foreign Theosophists were enchanted by the beauty of Budapest and by Hungarian hospitality; they left our midst as enthusiastic friends of Hungary.